Check this video
[youtube]AsDczg1pOFc[/youtube]

I don't think you understand my issue. I have hundreds of pieces, all in various groups, positioned in a way that I can't really ctrl click each piece or drag select. So I guess selecting is more of the issue. I need to be able to select the hinge and rotate the hinge and have all the pieces connected to the part of that hinge move along with it without having to manually select each piece or group.

If I'm understanding you correctly, try grouping all the groups into one big group. You can then select the big group with the smaller groups in it and move it easily. 😃

If that's too confusing, I'll try to rephrase. 😛

You can use the area select group and then click the pivot point you want. You can also assign a custom origin (pivot) point of a group.

What exactly are you missing from ldd?

There are so many groups inside groups, it will be a painful process to have to re-organize them all just for this functionality. I'm working on a structure that's been grouped by floor and exterior vs interior, with many subgroups. I wish there was instead some sort of selection option based on connectedness. A group selection tool would be helpful, too. Then I could select groups in the viewport instead of hunting for them in the outliner.

LDD has an actual hinge tool that allows you to set the rotation of the hinge and everything connected to it without having to select anything but the hinge. The connectedness functionality is what's missing.

You know you can lock groups so that when you click on a part belonging to a group in the viewpoint the whole group is selected?

You can also selected multiple groups. Hold ctrl and click.